WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange was arrested in London on Thursday morning, after Ecuadorian diplomatic officials invited British police into the country’s embassy to apprehend the Australian.

Assange had been living in the embassy of Ecuador in London under diplomatic asylum since 2012, and was granted citizenship by Ecuador in 2017.

Ruptly journalist Barnaby Nerberka has been broadcasting live from the embassy since tensions escalated between WikiLeaks and the Ecuadorian government of Lenin Moreno last week, and captured the arrest on camera.

WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange was arrested in London on Thursday morning, after Ecuadorian diplomatic officials invited British police into the country’s embassy to apprehend the Australian.

Assange had been living in the embassy of Ecuador in London under diplomatic asylum since 2012, and was granted citizenship by Ecuador in 2017.

Ruptly journalist Barnaby Nerberka has been broadcasting live from the embassy since tensions escalated between WikiLeaks and the Ecuadorian government of Lenin Moreno last week, and captured the arrest on camera.

This man saved us from a nuclear World War. This is how our species deals with its saviours.

Telling...

Last week, WikiLeaks said sources within the Ecuadorian government told them that Assange was due to be expelled from the embassy “within hours to days,” an allegation the Ecuadorians were quick to deny. It now seems those reports were accurate.

WikiLeaks has maintained that Assange is likely to be extradited to the United States if expelled from the embassy, and was mocked as paranoid by some in the mainstream media for repeated claims that sealed charges existed in the U.S. against the journalist. WikiLeaks was eventually vindicated, as the existence of those sealed charges was revealed in November last year.

In June last year, Vice President Mike Pence pressured the Ecuadorian government on the status of Assange following demands from Senate Democrats that he do so. The New York Times reported in December that Ecuador has been offered debt relief by the U.S. in exchange for handing over Assange.

While he was alive, neoconservative Senator John McCain claimed that leaks provided to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning, which included the diplomatic cables, caused U.S. foreign sources to be harmed.

However, it was in fact an error on the part of a Guardian journalist, not WikiLeaks, that that led to the full unredacted cables leaking to third parties on the web that WikiLeaks published them as well — and not before Assange attempted to warn the office of Hillary Clinton, then U.S. Secretary of State about the unintended leak of the cables.

A United Nations special rapporteur recently urged Ecuador not to expel the WikiLeaks publisher, warning that the risk of extradition without due process safeguards would lead to a risk of human rights violations.

“Extradition without due process safeguards, including an individual risk assessment and adequate protection measures violates international law, particularly if the destination state practices the death penalty and has not disclose the criminal charges held against the person concerned” warned the rapporteur.

UPDATE: Former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, who originally granted Assange asylum nearly seven years ago, condemned his successor Lenin Moreno as a “traitor” for the expulsion of the WikiLeaks publisher.”

The possibility of anything we can imagine existing is endless and infinite

I haven't got the time to spend the time reading something that is telling me nothing, as I will never be able to get that time back, and I may need it for something at some point in time. Wait! What?

The message is clear. Advocate for uncensored flow of information in a free society of ideas and you make yourself public enemy number one.

Wonder what responses there will be to this. Guess we can wait and see. But I’m any case, real journalists (e.g. Assange) better see the writing on the wall. No surprise this arrest took place shortly after the mass discrediting of the mass media and their three-year long “Russia conspiracy” lie. I’m guessing some managing editors and owners of media corps might be thinking of abandoning ship from the media industrial complex, after that catastrophe. Guess it’s time to drag a journalist through the coals in full public eye to send a message.

Would be funny if Trump declines to have DOJ charge him with anything. But I don’t think that will happen. It wouldn’t play well to the whole game of playing the middle. Balance of power, all that Machiavellian stuff.

I know people irl who actually still think Russia and Trump is “a thing”. Bernays was right, in the end. It’s all “public relations”. You either think for yourself or have someone think your thoughts for you. Hence the age of the death of journalism, heralded and supported by... journalists.